The mission of the Prison University Project is to provide free, high quality, higher education to people incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison and throughout the California State Prison system, to create a national model for such programs, and to promote public awareness about the state of criminal justice in the United States.
The central project of the Prison University Project is the College Program at San Quentin, which offers courses in the humanities, social sciences, math and science leading to an Associate of Arts degree in liberal arts, as well as a comprehensive College Preparatory Program in math and English. The San Quentin Program is the only on-site, degree-granting college program in the California state prison system. Approximately 200 students are currently enrolled in the College Program; 68 students have so far completed the Associate of Arts degree while at San Quentin; many more continue their studies at colleges and universities on the outside after leaving prison.
All of the roughly 60 instructors, teaching assistants, guest lecturers and tutors who participate in the Program in a given semester work on a volunteer basis; most are graduate students or faculty from the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State University, Stanford University, and other local colleges and universities.
Dream Fund Project
The Prison University Project seeks to create a model of prison higher education programs for replication both state-wide and nationally, while at the same time generating public discussion on the need for criminal justice reform. It aims to undermine the traditionally class-structure perpetuating function of higher education by providing access to college for precisely those individuals and communities which have traditionally been excluded from it. At the same time, it utilizes the practice of higher education as a tool, not only for improving the lives of people in prison (pre- and post-release), but for attracting the attention of the higher education, philanthropic, and media communities to the lives of people who are incarcerated.
The Dream Fund provides core operating support for these and other programs, including public education and outreach activities.
K-12 Education
Contact Representative
San Quentin, CA 94964
Fax: (415) 455-8288